Manisha Balwani, MD, MS

Dr. Manisha Balwani is a Professor in the Department of Genetics and Genomic Sciences and Department of Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Chief of the Division of Medical Genetics and Genomics. Her clinical interests include Lysosomal Storage Diseases and the Porphyrias. She is the Director of the Lysosomal Disease Program and a faculty member of the Icahn Genomics Institute.

Dr. Balwani completed her medical training at the University of Bombay, followed by a Master’s in Genetics at the University of Pittsburgh. She completed her training in Internal Medicine followed by a fellowship in Medical Genetics and Clinical Biochemical Genetics. She joined the faculty of the Department of Genetics at the Icahn School of Medicine in 2006.

Her initial research efforts were focused on the natural history and genotype-phenotype correlations of Gaucher disease. She served as Principal Investigator for therapeutic clinical trials for new therapies for Gaucher disease and Lysosomal Acid Lipase deficiency. Her recent research efforts have been focused on the acute and cutaneous porphyrias. She is an investigator for the NIH supported Rare Diseases Clinical Research Network’s Porphyrias Consortium.

Dr. Balwani was awarded the 2023 Mount Sinai Cullman Family Award for Excellence in Provider Communication. This award recognizes providers who rank in the top 5% nationally in provider communication in the Press Ganey patient experience surveys, with only 72 Mount Sinai providers of over 97,000 providers receiving this exceptional recognition in 2023.

As an experienced physician scientist, Dr. Balwani has been the PI of investigator-initiated and industry sponsored studies and clinical trials.